Angry Rants About Terrible Books

Sisters being angry on the internets. These are things we hated. Things we love have reviews in other places.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Agenda 21

I don’t waste my time on bad books. Generally speaking, I don’t read something unless it has come recommended by someone I trust and has similar tastes (a very short list of people). I have done a couple “random book meets” where I grab something unknown off the library shelf and just have at it and though that has lead to some mediocre books I can now say I have read the worst book I’ve read since those terrible Jedi Apprentice books.

Let’s just say I’m not going to read a book group selection again without double checking that it’s the right book.

Agenda 21 by Glenn Beck

First of all, I had a hard time deciding whether to go in chronological order or in written order. We’ll go with how it’s written, but it flits around all over the place through the lens of “suspenseful storytelling”. Emmeline (Seriously just had to look up her name. I finished this book yesterday and I can’t remember what’s her face’s name already) is super worried because her mother was taken away for being “unproductive”. Oh my gosh, who could have ratted on mommy? Is it the guard who watches their door to make sure no one leaves without permission? Is it a ratting neighbor? Is it the brainwashed-to-love-the-totalitarian-government “husband” Emmeline has just been given to a couple days ago and who lives with them? Hmmm… totally suspenseful and full of twists this is starting out to be. (part C) So the basic background to the story is that people didn’t see the government seizing power and they got rounded up into camps where they were and are “paired” into reproductive groups and they spend their time either in a job, like recycling, being a guard, farming, or in their cell-homes walking on an energy producing treadmill (because we must make more energy than we use, all glory to the earth and the authorities). After a certain point all children were taken and raised to be good earth-loving, brain-dead, authority worshipers in group homes… except for Emmaline and other children who were “old enough” to be raised by their parents. It’s super important that the children be brought up to be properly brainwashed, so it’s totally okay that all kids old enough to remember their parents at the time of the edict are left to be raised by their (unbrainwashed) parents. Riiiiight… that makes… sense?

Then a flashback to poor Emmaline being paired with her whiny-ass new “husband” who was raised by the authorities and is totally being a dick about being paired with a “non-virgin widow”. (part B) Wait, she’s a widow? She’s 17. Explanation? Flashback within a flashback to her being 14 and getting her first period. Oh, super serious time. Her mom tries to hide it, her dad finds out (oh, there’s a dad at this point), parents fight, parents accept that “the authority” will find out sooner or later and lets them know. Emmaline is so confused because despite the fact that she’s essentially been trapped in a mini-house with her mother for 10 years her mom hasn’t told her anything about the way life in their compound works. Bonus points for having such a poorly done picture of a person suffering from severe PTSD, way to be a plot device mom. Turns out girls are taken and roughly examined to see if they’re fertile, full of creepy leering male doctors. More bonus points for doing such a bad job at for portraying what sounds like a sexually traumatic experience. She just goes home after and is just hunky dory except that, gasp, she’s a beautiful special unicorn who happens to be actually fertile (Due to unexplained reasons, most of the people of childbearing age aren’t capable of having kids. Way to gloss over plot-relevant details) and is going to be paired with someone - anyone. Oh wait, it’s okay, it’s her parents old acquaintance who is totally nice and not okay with “the way things are now”… but who is in his 30s. Remember, she’s 14. This isn’t suspense, this is creepy shit. Fast forward two, decently, happy years and now she’s pregnant. Oh noes, Emmaline realizes, this means they’ll take her baby away. Sadness happens. Father and husband make plans to sneak pregnant Emmaline out, because literally all it would take would be to hide her in their grain bags they take out of the compound to a mysterious train station that no one actually sees. Before they can enact their plan the two guys have an “accident” that kills them both. Emmaline and her mother are super torn up about it, but have each other since - ever so conveniently - no fertile male is found for her to be paired with immediately so Emmy and her mother will live together. The baby is born not too long afterwards and is taken away and Emmaline is sent home super upset. Also sent home right after giving birth, like right away. Turns out the guy who helped her home is a friend of her parents from before they were all shipped off to the compound, handy dandy, that was convenient. Hey, dude’s wife works in the children’s compound? Woah, like she’s just an amazing plot device. Due to some magical something that happens, the day after giving birth Emmaline is up and walking on her treadmill all day. This is supposedly set only about 20ish years in the future, not 200 years from now where they have miracle-like cures for things on the order of “not being about to do stuff after having a baby”. (part A) Now we have a fairly chronological account from here on out. A month or so after this we are introduced to “new, whiny husband” who is so upset to be out of the children’s compound and working and not being pampered he essentially runs off pretty soon after. But not before he reports the mom (for not doing all her work of being a productive citizen) and is petulant about Emmaline getting up before dawn and reports that also as shifty behavior. But he is soon out of the picture after fulfilling his plot-given duties of getting the mom out of the way and leaving our heroine to be driven toward finding and living a better life where people don’t just disappear. She finds out that her mother hid special treasures in her bed, like recipes, a book (all paper has been taken away, so it’s super special to find a book), a knife, and a Bible (also contraband because the authorities don’t allow people to have religion). But now poor Emmaline is all alone, and she’s never been alone before. She’s always had her parents, both gone within the last month or so, and her first partner, who also died about a month ago. Poor Emmaline now starts flirting with handsome nighttime guard who, gaspity gasp, defies the laws and gives her extra food because, ohmygosh, his dad is that friend of her parents who helped her home the day she gave birth and his mom is the lady who is in charge of the children’s compound. He was her neighbor back before they were moved to the compounds, and his parents also don’t believe in the authority either. After flirting for a few days (well, night times) they’re so totally in loves with each other, but it’s so sad because Emmaline will be paired off with some dude if they can just find one because she’s a special unicorn fertile girl who must have all the babies. Hot guard dude even brings her flowers. How? There is a big fence keeping the people in away from the sacred nature. Ooo… obvious plot points! But wait! It turns out that handsome nighttime guard is fertile too, even though he works night shifts which is where the people who can’t have babies work (because reasons) so the authorities plan to pair them up and have Emmaline work night-shift with the children. Emmaline is super happy because she gets to be with hot guard dude and work with her baby at night. Bear in mind that at this point her last husband (not whiny brat boy) has been dead for only about five months, but he is for all intents and purposes forgotten because of hot guard dude. But sadness again. It turns out the lady who she’ll be working with at night is mean and doesn’t pay attention to the babies. Oh well, our heroine is so smart she flatters mean nanny to let her hold her baby in exchange for letting mean nanny go off duty to talk to her brother (except at this point I think we’re supposed to be thinking it’s some secret romantic rendezvous). When Emmaline comes home she has a talk with sexy guard dude. You think I’m being silly, but we keep hearing about this guy’s shoulders or his muscles or his hair. It’s not like Twilight, but it’s still pretty gratuitous. Turns out his dad made a hole in the fence that he uses to go out and get flowers, turns out there are a few people who got away and didn’t go to compounds, turns out he never told her that the authorities killed her grandmother and aunt who tried to fight against going to the compound. FEEL ALL THE ANGST! Let’s shove it down your throat how sad, and angry, and full of rage Emmaline is. She’s so flat it doesn’t feel real that she’s mad that she was never told that little nugget of information. She gets obsessive about having her baby taken away, takes the news of her dad and husband’s deaths pretty well, but nobody told her that she had an aunt and grandma? Screw everybody in the world! This sucks! Then it turns out that all the kids are getting shipped out because apparently kids don’t do well when they’re never allowed to learn anything other than pledges to the authorities and to the earth mother, or given any love, or even allowed to be treated differently (because we’re all equal here, citizen, so if everybody isn’t going to the bathroom or every baby isn’t being held to be fed for the exact same amount of minutes no one is). Emmaline just finally got to hold her baby and now her baby is going to be taken away AGAIN? Well, she can do something about that. She grabs baby while mean nanny is drunk (she hates the kids but is so upset about having to do another job she got smashed… ?) and takes baby back to her house and fights with her husband to get him to leave with her through the convenient plot hole… I mean fence hole… so they set a fire in the middle of the mega compound as a diversion and sneak back into the children’s area to steal a couple diapers and bottles plus an extra big kid who likes Emmaline because she was nice to him and so she feels compelled to him bring with her. They crawl out the fence and run off. Emmaline, hot guard dude, random young boy, and Emmaline’s baby are out in the wilderness with no idea where to go. The End. That’s where it ends. I’d actually be interesting in reading about that. A young, traumatized woman, desperate to bond with her newly recovered baby, but who’s struggling because she has no more food for her baby due to the separation and thus being unable to nurse. She’s joined by a man she likes but was married to against her will and who is dealing with leaving his whole family behind in basically a prison. Add in a young child who was rescued from the middle of an entire childhood plan of indoctrination and brainwashing and is struggling with what is real and what is lies. Throw in trying to stay alive apart from civilization without any wilderness training and only a small box of matches and a knife while attempting to find a group of rebels who may or may not exist , and you’ve got a pretty interesting story. But no, we have an array of mostly flat characters who feel more like plot devices than humans. We have a story that has uneven flow, reads choppily and feels like a first or second draft. We have an attempt to scare people into believing if we don’t keep Liberals out of political office we’re going to end up living in barricaded compounds forced to work, reproduce, and live in poverty stricken “communist” equality.

On the plus side I own this book, no I didn’t buy it, it was given to me so I can do whatever I feel like to it. It has a really pretty hardcover so I might make a book safe, I’ve always wanted a book safe.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Austenland

I was debating whether this should go on a blog about terrible books.  But though this book made me enjoy it's fluffiness it also made me so freaking upset I couldn't help but rant about it.   So I wanted to talk at you a bit about a book I just finished, Austenland, and I honestly can not decide whether to chuck in disgust or just enjoy fully in it's fluffiness. Let's start with our main character Jane, yes Jane, because you can't get more obviously "Jane Austen fanfiction" than the name Jane. I'm willing to look over this because Jane is just a great name, but it did put me on my guard from the beginning.

Throughout the book we get little snippets of her relationships at the start of each chapter. This woman really needs some readjustments about her views on relationships. She wants some great stuff: a guy who respects her, wants marriage, wants kids. She just has no good concept of how to look for guys like that. The worst part is after every failed relationship she looked for solace in Austen (particularly A&Es P&P movie) but then took her subsequent failings as "proof" that she was being sucked into the Austen genteel world.  She scoffs at the idea of therapy (even though I've personally never been I still get really bothered by people, real or not, who completely dismiss any form of therapeutic help) because she thinks she's figured out the problem except she really doesn't and nobody calls her out on it, they all agree with her. Her inheritance is a gift to this Austenland where she can find some relief to her problem. The proprietress makes some out of the blue, assinine, comment about how they don't get many people "like her" around, because she didn't pay her own way. Uhhh... how many rich people also have rich relatives who like giving extravagant gifts? A lot. Does this woman have no sense?  She might have just pissed off a customer who may well be repeating her stay if she liked it enough.

This assumption of "poverty" in Jane's background continues throughout her whole stay where she's playing the poorest lady there and thus must do things like enter last to dinner, etc. The idea of Austenland is pretty fantastic.  A vacation where you get to play act being a lady in Regency England complete with actors being eligible young (rich) bachelors who will try to woo you in perfect gentlemanly manner. A lot of fantasy fulfillment but it does sound fun. Now Jane doesn't feel the most comfortable doing this because she's trying to break her obsession, not feed it. After a while of sneaking out at night to have meetings with one of the gardeners/lesser-actors in a totally modern way (with TV, pop, kissing) it failed because she doesn't understand a kiss doesn't equal omg-we're-going-to-get-married-someday. So then she throws herself into the roleplay with the goal of making at least one of the actors "propose" at the ending ball.   What the f???  What kind of thought process is that?  We get to see inside her mind and it still didn't follow or make sense to me... unless she was the type of person who just may need some therapy to work out her relationship issues. Enter our Darcy. He's not called "Darcy" but he may as well be, so I'll just leave that name in. He's taciturn, slightly rude, and is kind of over-the-top prideful (in the proper Darcy way). This is his acting persona and we know essentially nothing of his real character during the whole book. Darcy/Lizzy banter ensues. Moments of real care from Darcy shine out, and also his glaring (yes, he was glaring and it was glaringly obvious) jealousy of her dalliance with the gardener.  You know where this goes by the end.  We end with a good ol' awkward confession of love.  I don't know what I expected, the book was called Austenland with a heroine named Jane and a Darcy character, but I was still let down by how clear it was from the start.  It was easier to see coming than the "plot twist" of a Nancy Drew book.

Jane doubts herself when he "proposes" because she wonders if it was actually real given the clues she'd been seeing. She had just witnessed the "secret engagement" of one other customer and the how annoyed an actor was by how strong armed he was into being head over heels for another customer; I wanted to slap some sense into Jane.  But actually Jane stays strong, says "no", and ends up leaving Austenland as planned, we presume, a slightly healthier person relationship-wise. Although, not because she fulfilled her fantasies, but because she learned from her interactions that were a little more honest because she was "playing" them.

Add in some extra stuff about how she snooped around and sent off the name she found on a hidden paystub (that she assumed was Darcy's real name, but really didn't know) AND the name of the gardener to her friend for background checks. Real heroines don't follow rules like "no electronics allowed so as to keep the realism alive", that would just be stupid. She ordered background checks on two people and looked over the divorce notes of one of them without their permission. That's just rude and not respectful of any level of boundaries  She didn't even know whose paystub it was and then proceeded to make judgments and reactions based on her presumption that she knew who it was.

And she wonders why she doesn't have a boyfriend? We then get to the end. Jane is leaving, feeling stronger. She's ready to go meet her gardener friend in London for a little "sexy time" when the proprietress lets her know that he was an actor and wasn't actually going to meet her. He was just there because they wanted to make sure she got her thrills and relationship fantasies fulfilled in their park. Let's be clear here. They did a full work up and background check on her to find out what sports she liked, what pop she liked to drink, etc. and dumped that "perfect man" on her. That's messed up and creepy. Jane is dejected, ready to fly out home, when both men run up and try to explain how they REALLY TRULY WUV HER! And though they were acting, they had real feelings and would she please just give them a chance. Now enter crazy Jane. She turns on one and accuses him of being a tool for Austenland, but politely declines the other. From a reasonable standpoint they are equally guilty here in lying and pretending and yet one is so much worse than the other?  She gets on the plane alone but when politely declined man shows up on the plane she doesn't really talk to him much aside from finding out they both want marriage and family and both have a tendency to throw themselves into relationships too quickly.  Then they spend the REST OF THE FLIGHT HOME sucking face. That's a lot of time.  To top it off she never informs either man she did a background check on them and read about them behind their back without their permission. I would think that would be best to disclose before you make out with someone on a plane for 10+ hours, but that's not how romance books go. It was fluffy and fun, but I kept getting smacked in the face with things that annoyed me. Like, did anybody proofread this book? One of the names was consistently spelled differently throughout the book, how does that get through?

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

so did you like soulbound or no

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Soulbound

Soulbound is the first book in the series The Legend of Tril by Heather Brewer. I'll admit, I requested this book because not only did the blurb (that I had access to at the time, which was nearly a year ago...) sound pretty cool, the cover was bafflingly interesting.

I mean- there's chain mail over her face (do you have any idea how badly chain mail and hair go together?), random ribbon on her bicep, and she's carrying a katana. How could I not request this book?

So, in the beginning of the book we're presented with what appears to be a fairly generic, quasi-medieval, fantasy world. No magic, but there's this bad guy named King Derrek who has monster minions called graplars. They talk about harvest festivals, a market, making and dying their own clothes, torches and candles are used, all buildings seem to be of stone or wood, medicine is all herbal, and they use parchment.

The human people are at war with this Derrek and his graplars. However, they seem to be there only for murder and mayhem, which is why I'm so puzzled by the idea of WAR. You don't go to war on monsters that murder randomly. You just defend yourself.

Then there's this little detail of Japanese flavor text. There are occasional Japanese place and family names sprinkled around, and there is a class of person who uses a katana.

Our main character is Kaya, which is the same name as the MC in a terrible story I wrote in my teen years. In fact, many of the main characters have the same personality traits and similar names to the people in the terrible story I wrote more than 15 years ago. Some plot points also hold some similarities, which I feel is more the result of trying too hard to make a spunky, capable female main character than anything else. Here's a hint to the author and to teenage me: don't make a strong female character. Make a strong character. Gender is irrelevant to the strength of character.

As further backstory, Kaya's parents are both Barrons- fighter-types with a supernatural ability to withstand pain. Kaya is a Healer- someone who can heal the wounds of a Barron she is Bound to with only a touch. When Healers and Barrons are born at the same time, they are Soulbound- soulmates meant to spend their lives together. It's absolutely forbidden, on pain of death, for two Healers or two Barrons to marry.

This is never explained. I went through the whole book wondering if it was a breeding thing, or a magic thing, or just a controlling-government thing, and never got an answer.

So Kaya and her parents are in hiding in a sleepy little town. Her best friend Avery is a girl who she kinda thinks is weird for being as into boys as she is. During a harvest festival, Avery gets killed by one of the graplars OUT OF NOWHERE, and suddenly Kaya is summoned to go be a Healer for real!

Her parents are held hostage to keep her behaving herself, and Kaya is shipped off to a place called the Shadow Academy, which sounds so sci-fi that I'm really not sure what's going on any more. As if to emphasize that there is no rhyme or reason to the worldbulding, Kaya's internal voice sounds like a valley girl, she complains about things being sexist, being shoehorned into the role of damsel in distress, and wears makeup.

...They don't even have electricity, and she's angry about not being taught math and science?

She also swears. A lot. But in cutesy ways. Rather than use the actual vulgar words that exist, the author has made up her own. Fak in place of fuck, dek instead of dick, and the entirely baffling terked off instead of ticked off. Yeah, that's right. She didn't make an entirely unclever reference to pissed off (pekked off? possed off?), she just censored the phrase ticked off instead. And then all the teenage characters used them liberally. I don't remember a single page that went by without at least one of those replacement words being used. Fak this, fak that, I told him to fak himself, what the fak? fakking stupid. In general, I disagree with the statement that vulgarity is the sign of a lack of creativity and poor vocabulary, but in this case, it seems true.

In the summons, Kaya is informed that her Soulbound Barron is dead, and they're going to Bind her to another Barron. Also, Healers are super, super rare so she has no other options.

Her guard fails to meet Kaya when her ride drops her off (And we never get to hear what said ride is- a car? Carriage? Shuttlecraft?), leaving Kaya to wander through jungle-like woods in an effort to make her own way to the academy. She's attacked by a graplar, because they have supernatural Healer-sensing powers due to years of killing them off so the Barrons can't get magic healing. But never fear! Kaya is rescued by a mysterious, white-haired, and incredibly handsome boy named Darius! He kills the graplar, and seems to expect Kaya to know him, and is disappointed when she doesn't. But Kaya doesn't care! She has anger and resentment and rebellion to be doing!

This is what passes for foreshadowing.

So, when she gets to the school, it turns out that the guard who was supposed to meet her is a kinda bitchy girl named Maddox, who sneeringly calls Kaya "princess." But don't worry! After they both appreciate a cute boy, they're now best of friends, and the nickname is endearing!

Said cute boy is the new Barron that Kaya will be Bound to (but not Soulbound, because her Barron is DEAD DEAD DEAD, guys!). The next day he essentially gets tortured so Kaya can heal him, and they're Bonded, yay!

By the next day, they're now a couple, after nothing more than her thinking that he's super hot and kinda nice, too.

He's not really nice. He's pretty condescending, actually. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. You see, despite the claims that the incredibly rare healers are placed on pedestals and treated better than everyone, there is some serious Healer oppression going on.

-Healers are in no way allowed to learn how to defend themselves. -If a group of Barrons are talking, they all have to agree to let a Healer join in before a Healer is allowed to talk. -Healers are subject to strict behavior rules, including curfews. -They are called insignificant. -Barrons are constantly bullying Healers who aren't Bound to them.

All those? Totally fantastic reasons for the people who are the only ones standing between you and death to keep on protecting you. Being helpless and bullied totally makes me want to help the bullies not get killed...

As a minor detail, the male teachers are called "Mr Name" and the female teachers are "Instructor Name." No explanation has been forthcoming.

In any case, that mysterious, beautiful, white-haired boy from the forest is the expert katana instructor. He teaches all the Barrons, despite not at all being a Barron himself. He's totally not. Really. This is entirely not a case of the author doth protest too much. And this entirely-not-at-all-a-Barron guy is cranky around our precious baby Kaya, and is horribly mean to her.

For the record, assigning a student who breaks the rules with extra gardening duties is now mean. (But we learned this from Snape.)

And, because he is so dreadfully mean, she decides to confront him. After curfew. At his cottage. Unchaperoned.

While she's confronting him, a pair of graplars show up! Instead of calling for help or anything sensible, the TOTALLY NOT IN ANY WAY A BARRON guy hands his only sword- excuse me, katana- over to Kaya and tells her to behead or distract one of them while he takes care of the other. Despite her lack of training, she kills a monster that is solely built to chomp. After getting the obligatory injury that requires her to partially disrobe so the guy who is mean to her can fix it. Oh, and BTW, she finds out he has a mark that shows HE IS A BARRON AFTER ALL. GASPSHOCK.

Anyway, she talks this mysteriously not a Barron guy into giving her combat training because she is literally the only person in over a hundred years to think that maybe healers should have a chance to defend themselves. He agrees, because reasons. In a week she's good enough with a katana to fight him to a draw while extremely pissed off.

Also she can beat Trayton (that's the dude she was Bound to a week ago who she was immediately gaga over because he's hot) when  mysteriously not a Barron decides that it would be a great idea to have them spar. Trayton, the rule-abiding, who will instantly report anyone for breaking the rules except his old friend Mel-something who is always flirting with him, even though she's a Barron, too.

Kaya and Darius go on a mission that is basically just him saying "this is my angst!" They bond. Kinda.

The main character is exceptionally ignorant of empathy. Other people have experienced loss and pain? Well, she doesn't like them, so whatever.

Kaya accompanies a bunch of Barrons out on a mission to take out some graplars. The fight almost goes poorly, and Trayton recognizes her fighting style from their previous sparring session (because he only heard her voice before, since she was masked. and despite them being a couple, he doesn't recognize her voice because they've only known each other for a week), and takes off her mask and is shocked, SHOCKED, I say, that his healer would dare risk herself in combat. That's what Healer-less Barrons are for!

As an aside: the spare Barrons are considered guards, and are also refused any sort of combat training, as their instincts are supposed to be good enough, and it's presumed that combat training would allow them to run away if they wanted. SO. There are a ton of extra, useless mouths to feed. At least it's not just Healers who don't get to learn how to fight? These people must be dying to lose their war.

The book ends with the villain of the piece letting a ton of graplars into the academy and a huge fight ensuing. There's an odd bit that I actually feel like I need to quote in order to stress the awkwardness of the scene. Keep in mind, this is only a week since she's begun lessons in swordplay in order to fight murderous monsters.

     Thinking fast, I brought my blade up just in time. It bit down on the metal just inches from my face. I thought that it might back off then, because the katana was cutting into the corners of its mouth, blood dribbling down the blade, down my arm and onto my chest. But the beast narrowed its eyes even more and pushed toward me, forcing the blade deeper into its own flesh. It didn't care. It only care that its actions would bring its hungry jaws closer to me.      My heart was racing. What more could I do to stop the beast? What more could I do to save my own life?      I pushed hard with the katana, sinking the edge of the blade in deeper still, hoping to lop off its head, but I couldn't get enough leverage on the blade, and drool was dripping from its jaw in anticipation of its next meal. Then, over the Graplar's shoulder, I spied the Barron who I had saved. The tip of the katana's sharp blade was sticking out of the side of its hungry mouth, and with precision, the Barron grabbed the tip with his hand. The metal sliced slowly into his flesh and blood poured out of him. He barely winced, and I was reminded of my parents and their enormous resistance to pain. He pulled the blade back, deeper into the beast's mouth. The katana cut through the Graplar's head cleanly, and with a gurgle, its giant body stumbled to the left before collapsing lifeless on the ground.

So, here's the thing. People who know about katanas know that they are sharp on only one side of the blade, which means that it should have been possible for the Barron to hold his hand in such a way that would avoid the blade doing much damage to his all-important tendons. Also, if the blade was sharp enough to cut through the graplar's head- HEAD- it would not cut slowly into his hand, if it cut his hand at all. It would slice through that mother like a bitch.

Oh, and they carry their katanas on their backs. Not a big deal, just another WTF moment.

And, in the midst of combat, people that no one has named or cared about dying all around them, Kaya demands an apology from Darius for the way he pitted Trayton against Kaya during one of their private training sessions.

And, after Trayton almost dies (Kaya's Bound superpowers failing to heal him), and Darius almost dies (Kaya's Soulbound superpowers totally healing him), the book ends in a moment of everyone going WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

And by everyone, I mean readers included.

As a bonus, here's a quote about Mel-something: "Her smile struck me as somewhat sadistic and absolutely surreptitious." Why not just go for "certainly" and keep the alliteration going?

And for a secondary bonus, let's guess who the traitor was! It's not like we have many major characters to choose from...

Was it: Kaya, the voice of the book? Trayton, the boy who follows all the rules even when it breaks his heart? Darius, who is Kaya's Soulbound? Maddox, Kaya's best friend who was a jerk for a whole day? Melanie, the Barron who wants to get with Trayton? Edmond, the guard who replaced Melanie? Raden, a Barron who is only there to be another named Barron? Headmaster Quill, who is SUPER into protocol and loyalty? Mr Groff, a teacher who called Healers insignificant? Instructor Harnett, who teaches the only class Kaya likes? Instructor Baak, who is crazy, yells at people for no reason, hates Kaya with a violent passion, and apparently listens at doors so she can catch people saying nice things about Healers and yell at them?

...it's not like that's a TOTALLY OBVIOUS CHOICE or anything.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Santa Fe Fandango

The LibraryThing Early Reader description for Santa Fe Fandango by Elinor Groves is as follows:

Matti Glover is thrilled to learn that hot Hollywood heart-throb Antonio Reed is not only filming a movie in Santa Fe, but staying in the exclusive complex where she's house-sitting. She rescues him from a busload of teenage girls, and grateful and intrigued, he asks her for a date. Matti's caught up in a Cinderella dream come true—until midnight hits and it's pumpkin time. Any reader who ever cherished a secret crush on Robert, Justin, or Orlando will enjoy this romp through the fan's ultimate fantasy.

Okay, granted, I requested a book that sounds like a silly young adult romance, but I'll admit it: I absolutely adored Meg Cabot's Teen Idol. I was hoping for a fluffy bit of ridiculous fun. I mean, even the cover looks appropriate for a twee little novel.

Matti, an artist, is house-sitting for a friend of hers in an exclusive Santa Fe community. Both she and her extremely flaming BFF (so Hollywood-stereotypical that it made me want to barf- I don't know a single gay man who actually acts like that in real life) are obsessed with an up-and-coming actor named Antonio Reed.

When I say obsessed, I mean that she has cardboard stand-ups, posters, all two of his movies that she's watched more than twenty times, and uses his image as a reference in countless drawings. She's filled notebooks and canvases with his picture. She gets flustered and self-conscious thinking about him. She's so goofy over this heartthrob that I honestly thought this girl was 17 and doing a family friend a favor, but noooo. She's in her late twenties. My age.

...and then it turns out that Antonio is there. In Santa Fe. Staying in the same community. Matti sees him walking around, and has the presence of mind- despite her twitterpated response- to warn Antonio about an incoming horde of teenage girls. When she runs into him again at the only restaurant this place apparently has where movie stars are willing to eat, he asks her out, charmed by her lack of crazy-fan-antics.

In the meantime, Matti is constantly freaking out over how to not have frantic fan freakouts, because she (rightly) thinks that he doesn't want to be romantically involved with someone who is only interested in the characters he played and his extremely attractive face.

And that, folks, is the entire conflict of the book. She tries to hide it, his bodyguard tries to convince him that she's one of the nutcases, she gradually becomes less of a crazy fan, they fall in love and WHOA HOLY COW SURPRISE EXPLICIT SEX SCENE.

Turns out, not a young adult novel. This is an actual romance novel, fulfilling the expectations of the genre.

And then the book just... ends. He finds out she's a crazy fan, decides he doesn't care, and they live happily ever after. Within the last 5% of the book. Least interesting climax of all time.

However, as I read, I began to put pieces together. The end clinched it. I was reading real person fanfiction. One of the fanfics written by a girl obsessed with an actor to the point that she writes fiction about the life of a real human being to give greater life to her fantasies about a hot guy. A piece of fiction meant to give the obsessed girl hope that the hot actor will fall in love with her despite the creepy things she's written about him.

And the guy in question? Orlando Bloom. The character's name is "Antonio Reed." They are both English, the physical description matches, and their first big movie role was that of the hot, young, supporting character in an ensemble cast (Legolas in Lord of the Rings vs Will Scarlet in Robin Hood). That single role thrust the previously unknown young actor into a whirlwind of interviews and paparazzi. The more I read, the more obvious it became. The whole thing reads like the author's fantasy about herself and Orlando Bloom. It was honestly a little sad by the time I finished.

If you can read it as just a light fantasy romance novel, it's not terrible. It's definitely not good, as the poor pacing clearly shows, but it could be worse. But if you're a person who keeps accidentally finding the trainwrecks of fanfiction about celebrities... eesh.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Switched

(Post from January 2012)

I'm not going to lie. I am absolutely fascinated by the idea of changelings (No, I'm not talking about the Angelina Jolie movie. I think. I haven't seen it, because her face creeps me out.), so when I saw the description of Switched by Amanda Hocking on LibraryThing's Early Reviewers, I jumped at the chance to win an advance reader.

The book is being published by St. Martin's Griffin in trade paperback next week, but it was originally self-published as an e-book. E-book self-publishing is a brilliant plan (with caveats like mostly illiterate idiots), a great way for aspiring authors to test the waters of publishing, and in Ms Hocking's case, she hit the jackpot- e-books successful enough to warrant the attention of a major publisher. Thing is, it wasn't popular because it's a great story- it's popular because it cashes in on the Twilight-kindled fad of supernatural, fawning hotties.

It starts out interesting enough. Six-year-old Wendy has a temper tantrum at her birthday party. Her mother got a chocolate cake, and Wendy hates chocolate. This is the breaking point for her mother, who goes insane, insisting that Wendy isn't her real daughter and killed her son. She attacks Wendy with the cake knife, leaving the little girl in need of 60 stitches. Her older brother intervenes and saves her life, and her mother is locked away in a psych ward.

Then we skip forward eleven years. Wendy is sullen, unfriendly, and ungrateful for the constant affection and support showered on her by her brother Matt and her aunt. They've moved repeatedly, putting Wendy in school after school as she continues to get kicked out due to her behavior. She has next to no impulse control, a bad temper, and is generally anti-social. Recently she's discovered that if she thinks very hard at a person, they will do what she wants. In her new school, a last-ditch effort at getting her graduated, she uses this power to avoid getting detentions for falling asleep in class. How noble.

After using her powers on a teacher, she realizes another new student- Finn-  has been staring at her. A lot. She handles her outrage predictably, and tells him off but good. He agrees to stop staring, asks that she stop using her powers on people, and then the subsequent lack of staring bothers her. Wendy doesn't make sense, and most people excuse this as "being a teenage girl." Granted, I no longer socialize with a great many teenagers, but even when I did (and when I was a teenage girl), that's... stupid. You don't have the right to be upset at someone for doing exactly what you told them to do, particularly when the activity ceased was one that the requester felt was creepy.

So, for reasons utterly baffling to me, Wendy opts to attend a school dance. There, she sees Finn, who dances with her, and then gets awkward and weird, rebuffing her painful attempts at flirting, which enrages her. She uses her power to convince a poor, hapless boy to drive her home, where her protective and loving older brother gets mad at a boy who would fluster her so much. (Seriously, her older brother is the bomb. He cares about his family, he's a hard worker, and he's willing to put most of his life aside to help his sister get through her issues with their mother trying to kill her.)

Instead of doing the smart thing and staying away, Finn gets Wendy to let him into her room while she sits up there and mopes. Then he tells her that her family is not her family, and that she's a troll.

Oh, sorry. Not a troll doll, a troll.

But wait!

That's not right, either. They call themselves Trylle, and are sexy beasts. The author doesn't just take the part of the Wikipedia entry that says trolls can look like humans to heart, she runs away with it, cackling madly. I can handle good-looking vampires (they have to attract prey somehow), and what's Glamour for, if not to make the Fey Folk beautiful? Angels and Demons can be attractive, I suppose, based on folklore. But even looking like humans doesn't mean that they should all automatically be gorgeous. Oh, no. I mean foxy, as that's the word the author uses time and time again.

From Ms Hocking's Goodreads profile: "I also wrote the Trylle Trilogy, which is a paranormal romance without vampires, shifters, mermaids, fae, angels, dragons, ghosts, or ninjas."

Psst, honey. If they're all supernaturally beautiful and all have the same magical powers, it doesn't matter if you call them trolls instead of whatever else has sold well strikes your fancy.

Aaaaaaanyway.

Having talked his way into the bedroom of a teenage girl using the ol' "You're special, not like everyone else," line, Finn (who admits to being 20 years old) explains that her power of getting everything she wants is more proof that she's a troll. So are her picky eating habits! Also her curly hair that tangles even more than regular curly hair! And some trolls (but not her) have skin of a shade that makes them look permanently seasick! Except they are otherwise gorgeous.

And with all that proof, he wants her to come with him to meet her biological mother and live with the Trylle. Wendy initially refuses, because she doesn't want to disappoint her brother and aunt (though this is not the first time she says she doesn't want to hurt them, this is the first time she tries to do something about it). After an attack of plot-moving proportions, Wendy decides to abandon the family that loves her and go with this stranger who tells her crazy things.

My readers who were once fantasy-loving teenage girls have probably figured out where this is going.

Wendy is not just any Trylle changeling.

She's the daughter of the queen, and heir to the massive fortune and tiny kingdom.

And it would seem to be quite the fortune, as the lands and palace are expansive and expensive, as we are frequently reminded. Note to Ms Hocking: "expensive" and "designer" and "high-fashion" do not actually tell your readers what something looks like.

And all this cash? Comes from changelings. That's right, the Trylle are basically massive con artists, placing their cuckoos in the nest eggs of wealthy families, who raise, educate, and leave giant inheritances to children, all unsuspecting. One would think that the governments and revenue services of the various countries that house these troll children would eventually catch on to the fact that all this money keeps going to a tiny place in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota along with these children. There's this thing where governments like money, and that seems like a pattern they wouldn't just miss.

Wendy's bio-mother is cold and demanding, insisting that, since Wendy is a princess, she should behave like one, despite being a sullen teenager who had someone try to kill her as a child. A debutante ball is scheduled for a few weeks later, and a huge chunk of the book is then Wendy trying to learn how to be a princess and whining incessantly about it. The boy whose place in human society she replaced lives in the house, and she alternates between flirting with him and Finn, complaining about how Finn doesn't act in ways she approves of, and dissing the entire society that she gave up a loving family for.

She also snoops in a locked room, and finds a painting of herself, dressed in an elegant silver gown, a look of abject horror on her face, injured, and surrounded by broken glass. Turns out the queen has a talent for painting the future. Wendy dwells on this painting a lot in the following weeks, but apparently not enough.

At one point she and Rhys (human half of the changeling swap) sit down to watch Lord of the Rings, and he tells her that it's so much funnier when you know real trolls. Really? Because there's only a cave troll in the first one,  a few in the siege of Gondor, and a pair open the Black Gate. In the extended edition you get a quick glimpse of the trolls that turned to stone in The Hobbit, but the only time anything is ever called a troll in those movies is the cave troll.  Boromir's resigned, "They have a cave troll," and then fighting. I hatehatehate it when an author tries to make a cutesy nerd reference while knowing nothing at all about what they just said.

And does anyone else find it creepy that she's flirting with the biological brother of the man she thought was her brother for 17 years? Because EW.

Sometime in all this entirely boring talk about preparation for her ball, Wendy realizes she's in love with Finn, and badgers a confession of the same feeling from him because he promised to never lie to her. But! Oh, dear heavens! A princess isn't allowed to be "caught" with a Tracker or a human! She'll be banished from the Trylle kingdom!

Right then, the only things she likes about the Trylle kingdom are Finn, Rhys, and the abundant money. Who cares if she gets banished? So she goes back to live with her loving family? Sounds dreadful!

But, because he loves her and he believes it would be best for the kingdom if she inherited, Finn chooses to leave. Sound familiar? Wendy falls into a stupor, needing to be physically guided through the morning of the ball, completely non-functional without her man. Also familiar?

During the designing and fitting of her ball gown, Wendy somehow entirely fails to notice that it's the exact dress in the prophetic painting. At least her mother has the excuse of not having seen the dress at all during the process.

There is an awkward ball, interrupted by the second convenient attack of plot movement! We're never given an actual explanation for why these people want to kidnap Wendy, but I assume it's because of her princess-ness and probably super-powers that have yet to manifest. Nameless people die! Rhys is injured trying to protect Wendy! Newfound friends fight! Finn reappears to romantically save Wendy because she can't protect herself with her magical powers of persuading people to do what she wants! Finn fights off the bad guys, Wendy goes... Oh, crap. I've finally realized this is the scene from the painting, and Finn and the bad guy go over the side of a cliff!

Don't worry, Finn gets rescued by the guy who seems to only exist to be telekinetic. He's rewarded with a chaste night of cuddling, and then the queen sends him away For Good. Enraged by the loss of The One True Love of Her Life, Wendy decides that now is the time to run away. She uses her persuasion on Rhys and they motorcycle away.

But they can't use the gate, because the guards are on high alert after the attack. Rhys remembers a hole in the fence that other humans had used to run away, and they go out that way, noting that the hole had been enlarged. They assume that this was how the bad guys got in, and go on their merry way, back to the human family. It never occurs to them to mention this breech to anyone who might want to do something about it, and Rhys never recalled it before, despite there being a threat of attack from the moment Wendy arrived. The end.

I gather there are two more books in this series. I'm not going to read them. Why would I? Given the way these things work, chances are that there will be at least one more romantic interest introduced, endless pages of adolescent angst will ensue, and it will end happily ever after. I could instead spend my time on books that are well written. Or on writing.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Facebook is a better use of my time.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Midsummer Magic

It's time for another Ragereview.  These come up periodically, and when I reduce poor Simon to giggles over my reenactments, I start to think that maybe I'm funny and should write these things down for the rest of the world.

This particular book is Midsummer Magic, by Catherine Coulter.  Now, you might say, dear Rachel, this is a romance novel.  Are you feeling a touch masochistic today?

I have an excuse, I promise.  It's not a very good one, to be sure, but it is an excuse.  I can't find the review now, but it was gushingly positive over the book, claiming that the roots of the story could be found in the story of Sir Gawain's wife and The Wife of Bath.  There was only one real point of similarity in the stories, which I'll have to expound on further. Or not. We'll see.

But before I get to that: a disclaimer.  I'm writing a ragereview of a romance novel.  If your answer to the question, "Do I have delicate sensibilities?" is anything less than raucous laughter, you may want to avoid reading after the cut.  But don't worry, I have pre-cut rage, too!  Just with less salty language and fewer illustrations.

A brief backstory is given to us: Hawk's father had his life saved by a Scotsman, and in gratitude, swore that one of his sons would marry one of the Scotsman's daughters, to not only give her a better life, but also to give the other two sisters a chance at a London Season and wealthy, titled husbands.  Just what every Regency-era father dreams of, right?

Now, Hawk objects.  Of course he does, else this wouldn't be a romance novel.  But, his father is dying, tragically and melodramatically, and only wants to see his one living son wed before he dies.  His father is also a manipulative tool.  One guess as to how ill the man actually is.  Just one.  Hawk, guilt-ridden, goes up to Scotland, to meet the three choices.  He'd really rather gad about London with his mistress, and worries that marriage is going to upset his carefree plans.

Meanwhile, Lord Kilbracken is announcing to his three daughters that One of them is getting married this week!  Be happy, dammit!  The eldest, a caricature of an artist, wanders dreamily in hope he'll choose her so she can paint all the Ton.  The youngest, a silly, vivacious, and pretty girl would give anything for a rich husband to shower her with gifts and take her absolutely everywhere so she can be Seen About.

The middle daughter, (whose name I have forgotten already because she's that kind of heroine) Frances (ah-ha!) is enraged by this news, much as I am by the way the point-of-view changes in the midst of paragraphs repeatedly.  It goes beyond simple error or an editing oversight and could almost be called a stylistic choice, it happens with such frequency.  I became surprised that the author didn't suddenly begin switching POV in the middle of a sentence!

Frances is the prettiest daughter, known for her beauty and sparkling wit (I never did witness wit- merely snarky, unfunny bitchiness), and a great lover of animals.  She spends her days on their country estate being a veterinarian of sorts, caring for the horses in particular.  She treats colic, delivers foals and calves, stitches wounds, and doses thrush.  She's A Very Independent Woman.  (Because heaven knows, in any book set before 1950, you must indicate a woman is Modern by having her heal things.  Did they never want to run a shop, or dream of being a lawyer, or of managing their own estate?  And God forbid a heroine be remotely interested in anything domestic.)  As Hawk arrives, Frances spies him bathing in the loch, and ogles him until she figures out that this is the man she meant to Hate Forever.  Then she's angry at him for daring to bathe where she might see.  She has delicate sensibilities, ya'll!  Men bathing in what they thought was privacy is just beyond the pale!

But, loyal readers, never fear!  Our intrepid heroine has just the plan to deceive the dashing yet dastardly dude!

In a fit of conceit, she chooses to encourage Hawk to pick one of her eager sisters by: wearing her oldest clothes, pulling her beautiful flowing hair into a bun, wearing spectacles that inhibit her vision, and being boring.  Because she's actually concerned that he'll decide on her if he sees how Totally Awesome she is.  Now, to her slight credit, she realizes it's incredibly egotistic of her...

but, despite her vaunted brains, she never once considers the possibility of just asking him to not think of her as an option.  Rather than be sensible, she chooses an idiotic disguise.  Honestly, the only time things like that work are in movies and books where they're scripted to, because people are not that stupid.

(What was her name again?  Oh, right...) Frances' father, stepmother, and sisters are horrified at the hideous hag into which she's transformed herself.  And seriously, the word hag is tossed around like a football.  She's a 22-year-old hottie in a shapeless dress and a bun, not Baba Yaga.  And despite parental objections, she minces about like an aged mouse, much to the delight of her sisters who are relieved that their competition has just been reduced.

Hawk is appalled by her wretched state.  The bun and hat and glasses are near enough to make his stomach turn in revulsion.  This visceral reaction to a woman's appearance- a woman who is actually exceptionally gorgeous- really does nothing to make him seem like a sympathetic person.  Incredibly boring hijinks ensue, wherein Hawk has a personal interview with each sister and Frances sulks.  No one bothers to tell Hawk that Frances is being a manipulative twit (even her disapproving father), and so he's stuck with a decision.

Since she's made herself into a revolting wretch,

the author needs to come up with some reason for Hawk to pick Frances, so he has a soul-searching session wherein he realizes he's a selfish, immature git who doesn't want to give up his mistress and carefree life.  But rather than thinking this is in any way bad, he instead concludes that the only reasonable response is to marry the ugly sister not interested in meeting anyone.  So he can leave her at home, alone.  And she won't mind at all that he's out whoring, because she's ugly!

Any pretense at respect for this man I had was lost right there.

Hawk thinks, in his ever-so-winning manner, that his best bet at a happy life is to get his frumpy bride knocked up post-haste.  The first night Frances makes some excuse that doesn't even matter because it's so lame that I can't even remember, and then after a long trip in the carriage the next day she's seriously motion-sick.  Pleading headache, she pushes Hawk off another night, but he's convinced she's lying and accosts her in her room... to find her puking up her guts because this ever-so-intelligent woman took colic medicine by mistake, instead of the laudanum she'd meant to take.

He holds her hair while she's sick, never once noticing any difference with her hair down and without glasses.  Of course, she is being repeatedly and violently sick, so he has some excuse.  The next night, though, he is determined to exercise his husbandly rights.  So determined, in fact, that he completely ignores all her protests.

WHAT.

Okay, to distract from that first instance of complete horror, let's take a detour into something funnier and less... rape.  Because that shit ain't funny.

This is a girl who grew up in rural Scotland, working with farm animals.  She's afraid of sex on the grounds that: she doesn't know what to expect, he'll be so big that he'll literally tear her apart, and good girls don't like sex, even with their husbands.  So, after her protests go unheeded, she lies still and thinks of England.

He, on the other hand- or perhaps on the same hand as Frances' last objection (which she never voices), has decided that wives are entirely unlike mistresses and require no encouragement in the marital relations department.  So, rather than trying his hand at making any part of the night easier or better for her, he gets out cream to ease his passage.

I had a bit of mental disconnect at the idea of cream.  While I was well aware that what was meant was something along the lines of a Regency KY, I couldn't help picturing something a bit more like the heavy whipping cream I'd just picked up at the Jewel a few days before.

And... well.  Let me just say that whipping cream doesn't seem like the best idea for that kind of thing.  It's a bit sticky.  Not to mention to constant repetition of the word "cream" was enough to make me burst into immature giggle fits.  I've (much to my chagrin) read many romance novels, in order to have the right to criticize them to my little heart's content.  For those who've spared themselves the pain, I now have the pleasure of informing you that "cream" is the go-to word to describe feminine arousal fluids.  You're welcome.  Your brain will forever link that to the half-and-half you're about to pour in your coffee.

Feel free to hate me.  Sometimes I do, too.

These forced relations with the aid of oft-mentioned cream continue at every inn on the way back to Hawk's estates, and I cringed every time.  At least I can be sure they weren't meant to be romantic, but way to paint your hero in a sympathetic light.  He's willing to force himself on his wife, even when she's lying there, crying.  Asshole.  He doesn't even talk to her.  Just enters with the cream, does his business, and is out the door in ten minutes.  Nothing about this makes him sexy.

Then, eventually, thankfully, they get back to his home, where his father is (unsurprisingly) spry and running about, bossing the servants and acting in a way that's supposed to be Funny Old Wise Man Who Knows Everything but is in fact merely irritating, bossy, and an interfering know-it-all.  There is much outrage expressed over his Lying Lies, but Hawk's father is incredibly smug over Hawk having picked the right girl, despite Hawk's complete incredulity that his father wanted him to pick the heinous hag.

  Their first night at home, he forgets the cream, and this leads to his father being informed by the servants of the state of their sheets.  His father then confronts Hawk, demanding to know if they'd waited until returning to their home before consummating the marriage.  That's right- Hawk forgot the cream, and rather than trying anything at all in order to prevent his wife from suffering, had sex with her without any lubrication at all, leaving bloody spots on the sheets because of his utter lack of compassion.

No wonder she hates him.

A few of Hawk's friends stop by to meet Frances, and all of them see through the ludicrous disguise that has somehow survived several weeks, and yet again, no one mentions it to Hawk.  This is either commentary on the depth of his friendships, or perhaps his friends simply feel he deserves to be hoodwinked at such a pathetic level.

It's a matter of weeks before Hawk gets fed up and goes traipsing back to London, whining to his mistress that his wife is boring.  She tries to convince him, between vigorous bouts of sex, that wives are just like any other women, and that he should treat Frances like he does his ladies of the night.  He runs briefly into his shrewish sister and her Clearly Evil Fiance (mid-paragraph POV change to hear him talk about his Evil Plots!).  Hawk is flirted with by disappointed women, gambles with his male friends, and is finally guilted into returning home to his wife.

Frances, on the other hand, has been encouraged by her father-in-law to ditch the disguise and run the estate, since Hawk seems to show no interest in doing so.  She's incredibly gorgeous, making friends with all the staff immediately, and shows an enthusiastic interest in the racing stables.  Her skill at healing farm animals gives her a wicked insight into the business of horse racing, of course.

Hawk returns, and finds his wife, sans bun, spectacles, silly hat, and shapeless dress, and is hit with a lightning bolt of lust, followed swiftly by jealousy as he decides that she's been cuckolding him with his employees.  Obviously.  Finally her denials get through to his little brain, and he decides that it's a good thing he came back intending to seduce her.  Why wouldn't he seduce a hottie?  He's also irritated that the little lady is overstepping her bounds by running the stables.  He doesn't bother to look at her lack of qualifications, he just thinks with his penis and decides that since he's having sex with her, she shouldn't be doing such unladylike work.

But Frances is still opposed to knowing her husband biblically.  Given the experience she's had thus far, I can't really blame her, but again, she doesn't go about expressing this to him in any useful way.  He walks up with a smarmy look on his face and she scowls and walks away.  No, "Hey, don't be a douche."  Nothing resembling, "Have you considered listening to me."  Just screeching over how she hates him and he's horrible and stupid and on and on and on.

So, upon hearing that she's hired out a stallion for stud services,

he decides to have her join the men and watch the horses mating.  Because that will get her totally turned on and ready to go!  Hawk forces her to dress as a boy, which amazingly fools everyone, and much to my surprise, Hawk's idiotic plan worked.

The author describes the horses mating in rather painful detail, talking about the mare screaming in pleasure, and the stallion trumpeting his release, with a pause to describe- with a failed attempt at gentility- the stallion's genitalia.  And Frances is driven so wild that she and Hawk step into the barn for a quickie.  And somehow, despite working as a healer for farm animals, Frances has somehow missed figuring out how animals mate.  Here's a hint- this (which you shouldn't click on unless you're fully prepared to take responsibility for witnessing horse sex):

Horse sex video here.

Is Not Sexy. Unless you're a furry. Which is a fairly small subset of the population.

Yes.  Well.  In any case, Frances pretty thoroughly hates herself for being so into Hawk after watching... that... and avoids him for a day or two.  His plans to woo her into sexytimes failed, Hawk then asks her to sit down with him after dinner and play cards, whereupon he gets her blindingly drunk and they have hot, hot monkey sex.  Which she regrets in the morning, so he plans to get her drunk again.

Unfortunately, his dastardly plans are foiled by a visit from his Shrewish Sister and her Still Clearly Evil Fiance, who want to buy the racing stables from poor Hawk, who doesn't want that trouble, does he?  Oh, no!  Hawk and Frances refuse to sell, on the grounds that Hawk wants to keep taking his wife to see horses getting it on so that he can get some, and Clearly Evil Fiance flounces off with Sister, back to London to plot more.

And then accidents begin to happen, and Frances falls off a horse after a booby-trapped jump.  Hawk is distraught, because he loves his wife.  One might wonder when this happened.  Also how.  These questions are mere trivialities, since they have more sex.  Also, she loves him, too.  Because of sex that she either didn't consent to or regretted.  Stockholm Syndrome is romantic!

Then about two chapters wherein the Clearly Evil Fiance shows his true colors and they find out the secret of the stable which was stunning clear from the beginning.  Flying in to save the day is... Hawk's mistress, who he'd given a huge pile of money and sent away to get married after she funneled information about CEF to him.  Frances and the mistress become instant and fast friends.  For some reason.  The bad guy offs himself, all comes to light, and everyone lives happily ever after, the end. ...no, really.  The end.  Plot only happened in the final 10% of the novel.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

Elf Love

Elf Love, a compilation edited by Josie Brown, Rose Mambert, and Bill Racicot

I'm pretty sure this book review is going to end up NSF work, mothers, grandmothers, little sisters, the innocent, the easily offended, people who think fairies are a nice version of Tinkerbell, and people who think fairies are everything Terry Pratchett says of them in one of my favorite Discworld quotes:

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad. --Lords and Ladies, Terry Prachett

This quote encompasses everything I believe about elves and fairies and all the Goodly Folk.  Sometimes I half believe in them.  I certainly would be more willing to believe in Fairy than aliens.  No one can deny that I adore elves.  The only plastic surgery I would remotely consider is having my ears pointed (don't worry, mom, I would never actually do that).  I've been reading fairy tales, urban fantasy, and regular fantasy for longer than I can remember.

All of that said, I was mildly skeptical when I requested this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers.  

The cover is lurid and sensationalistic, but since I seek out urban fantasy, it seemed like something I should try. Really, when good elf stories are hard to come by, one must look where one can.

Well. Shall we begin?

Given that this is an advance reader edition of the book, I can hope that the misspelling of J.R.R. Tolkien's last name in the dedication and the typo in the sentence thanking the copy editor will be fixed by the time the official print run is completed.  There were several other typographical errors and misspellings that I noticed, but by far, those were the most grievous offenses.

...but on to the stories.  The introduction states that they hope to "defy the boundaries of genre" and publish fantasy that "doesn't suck."  This sets the bar high: a lot of fantasy does, in fact, suck, and the boundaries of the fantasy genre are so wide as to be nearly all-encompassing.  I was curious as to how they intended to accomplish these goals when I dove into the first story.

The first two were nothing special- both themes I've seen done over and over again in fantasy and horror.  The third... without giving anything away, the third is a giant set-up for a one-liner at the end.  A very well-known one-liner.  I groaned, and not in amusement.  More at the waste of my time.

But I continued on, working my way through more short stories.  There seemed to be a running theme in the author blurbs about how they threw together their story so quickly- and this is something they state with pride.  Revision would really have been their friend.  Believe me.

For all the desire to defy boundaries, they never even approached sight of them, so deep in the heart of stereotypical elf fiction they remained.  There was a great deal of gender ambiguity to- I think- prove a point about stereotypes, but even the attempts couldn't disguise the gender or what the writer was trying for.  A lot of non-heterotypical relationships, to prove how open-minded and better elves are.  (Except when it comes to half breed elves- then their prejudice comes out full force.)  A lot of vulgar language that, in most cases, seemed forced and unnecessary.  If it jolts me (a reader used to such language) out of the story, I'm going to think the author was shoving it in there like a teenager hell-bent on scandalizing the staid adults around him.

And don't forget to toss in a story about how people who game online can't interact with others in real life!

But sometimes you can find a gem hidden in the offal- and this would be To Kill The Oak King by Rose Mambert.  Courtly intrigue, rebellion, and betrayal make for a good story, and hers was well paced and written.

However... I find it ironic that the one good point in the whole book was written by the same person who wrote the title(ish) story.  Wherein we discover that fairy dust is actually elf ejaculate.

!!!!!!

The pre-story blurbs on her stories made it clear to me that the underlying goal of this anthology was to shock- because she states in To Kill the Oak King that the story almost didn't make it into the anthology and she was forced to revise twice.  But she also was pleased to have banged out the first draft of (S)Elf Love in half an hour.  The best story they had was nearly rejected, in favor of glittery elf ejaculate.  There is not enough sarcasm in the world to cover that sentence.

I was surprised at how many of the writers approached the topic of elf love as though it had never been done before- odd, when you consider that many more stories have been written about elves and love than otherwise.  And, other than To Kill the Oak King, none of the stories were worth the time it took me to read them.

[angryrantsaboutterriblebooks]

A Hellion in Her Bed

A Hellion in Her Bed, By Sabrina Jeffries

We open with our hero's memories of the days after the mysterious deaths of his parents, being sent off to Eton for his typical upper-class education.  He is distraught, and so takes to gambling in order to show the bullies that he won't be trifled with.  Of course, he never wanted to go away to school in the first place- deep in his heart he wishes that he could have stayed and worked in his grandmother's brewery, because that is where he felt he truly belonged.  Awwwww.

So.  Jarret (!!!) has a dark past, and grew up into a rakish, womanizing, scapegrace with a taste for good ale and a solid game of... whist.  (Okay, I know that poker wasn't around in Regency England, but when whist is discussed in Austen novels as a genteel parlor pastime for ladies and gentlemen I have a hard time seeing it as the game of choice for hardened gamblers.  It's like hearts or sheepshead or euchre.)  His grandmother has threatened to disinherit all her grandchildren unless they marry within the year, and they are all- very understandably- distressed by this.  Of course, this being the second book in a romance series, the eldest son found his soulmate in book one.  And Jarret is the second child... so he really should have known better.

Due to his grandmother's illness, he finagles a deal from her, wherein he is no longer bound by her requirements, and as a favor, he runs the brewery (which he inexplicably no long has an interest in) for her for a year.

Male lead setup- done.

Annabel is a lovely country lass, sister to the owner of a country brewery.  She loves her family and the brewery and will do anything to save it from her brother's drunken neglect.  In addition, due to a youthful indiscretion with her fiance- who then died heroically in battle- she has a secret of her own, young George, who is being raised by her brother and sister-in-law as if he were their own.  No one outside those three knows that George is NOT Annabel's nephew.

She wants help from Jarret's brewery in getting in on the ale market run by the East India Trading Company.  He has the well-known name, and she has the excellent pale ale, and she thinks that the companies could make a great deal of money together, saving both of them from financial ruin.  Her sister-in-law (creatively named "Sissy") and George accompanied her on this trip to London.

If you think you know where this is going...

...you're probably absolutely correct.

Oh, except for one small detail.

Really, it's just a tiny thing.

In order to gain his help, Annabel follows Jarret to a local pub, where she pushes herself into their game of whist and makes a mad wager- his aid with the brewery against her virtue.  Or, as Jarret so winsomely put it, she would get to "warm his bed."

Said wager is handily won by Annabel, who then frets that he let her win because he found her too repulsive to sleep with.  (One must wonder what kind of self esteem a girl would have to have in order to think such a thing.  It's a problem, in books and in real life, that some girls will think that ALL men ALL the time are obsessed with how attractive they are, and others are convinced, despite all evidence to the contrary, that ALL men ALL the time think they are repulsive hags. It is my wish that someday we can all have a more realistic self-image. Because damn if I haven't been both of the above at various points in my life.)

Moving on....

He wants to check out the brewery they run and speak to her brother (who they have claimed is "ill"), so together they all head out to the country, stopping at an inn for lunch where a nasty woman who believes the (entirely true) rumors about Jarret tries to poison him with bad meat, but instead the meat is fed to Sissy, who then gets terribly, dreadfully, ill, and we are subjected to pages and pages of Jarret and George bonding in a manly father-son manner whilst Annabel cares for the ill-and-possibly-dying-from-two-bites-of-bad-meat Sissy.

But then!  George catches Jarret and Annabel kissing!  (Why, you ask?  Because every woman in a romance novel gets irresistibly gorgeous when she's angry, and angry men who are fighting with said angry woman evidently have no self control.)  George, in a fit of twelve-year-old grownupness, demands to know Jarret's intentions, which Jarret then expresses as honorable.

Which I seriously can't buy, because all he's been thinking about is how sexy he thinks she is, and how badly he wants to get into her pants, blah blah blah.  Also, he thinks she's annoying and bossy and everything, and I don't think he had a single charitable thought about her that didn't involve her breasts until this very point in the book.

I was a little distracted by my outrage over the above at this point, and I'm not really sure how they ended up trapped in a barn during a sudden rain (although I can't honestly say I was surprised... and it may actually have been that sudden)... but trapped they were.  And, true to every stereotype of romance novel known to mankind, they were making out within minutes.  The awkward phrase "sweet pebble of a nipple" was used, and I fell off the couch from laughing.  Unlike every stereotype of a romance novel known to mankind, they did NOT have sex.

But only because this is a Regency Romance, and Jarret was suddenly concerned that he would Ruin Her.  This hadn't really been an issue for him before... but... you know what, I don't even know where to go with that sentence.  I'm just going to leave his random hypocrisy out there to hang.

Okay, then more stuff happens, they end up at the brewery, he meets Hugh (Annabel's brother), they go to a party for brewers, Annabel wears an old-fashioned dress that is more low-cut than current fashions, Jarret is obsessively concerned with her breasts and who is looking at them, blah de blah, and then he finds out that HUGH IS AN UNRELIABLE DRUNK (!!!!) and he daren't do business with them at all, he must leave for London and Annabel is a big fat (super sexy) liar (but with a great rack), RAWR.

Holy overreaction, Batman.

So, in desperation, Annabel begs to re-do their wager- same stakes- and asks him to meet her at the brewery in the dead of night.

They do so.

He wins.

And then turns down his winnings.  Not because he is a gentleman, but because he is power-tripping and requires that SHE say she wants it before he has sex with her. This would be an awesome moment of him wanting consent... except... I have this feeling that it's not actual consent if he makes her say she wants him. She does- even though she finds the words painfully embarrassing.  Repeatedly.  It was excruciatingly degrading to read.  So then there's pages of sex (it's neither awfully written nor particularly good), and then afterward they talk about her dead fiance and how it was when she was with him.  This would be, I think, the perfect time to bring up the subject of George, considering how they went straight for awkward conversation, but no.  She's just all, "let's do this again sometime!" and he's all "sweeeeeeet."

Then her brother chooses to grow up, get his head out of the bottle, and tell his sister it probably isn't safe for her to be wandering around town all by herself late at night, and to please Knock It Off.  She agrees, and there are no more clandestine meetings...

In the meantime, Jarret's pal from the Bow Street Runners who was investigating the deaths of his parents (could have been a double murder, could have been murder-suicide, could have been accidental homicide-suicide), comes around and tells Jarret about how it was probably his cousin (of whom we have never before heard) who killed both parents in order to inherit the brewery.  Oh, and also, there are lots of rumors about Jarret and Annabel and you could solve everything by marrying her.  Jarret thinks this is an excellent plan, and how on earth could Annabel refuse his... powers of persuasion?

Except then she does refuse, because she can't bear to leave her son or subject him to the gossip once people found out he was a bastard.

Of course, she then has a conversation with her brother and sister-in-law about the whole thing, which her son overhears... and then he decides to run away to London in order to make Jarret marry Annabel.  Which would make more sense if he were under the age of eight, instead of nearly thirteen.

But then, suddenly, everything is happy, because Jarret realizes (via conversation with a twelve-year-old) that he's actually madly in love with Annabel (duh), he proposes again, more romantically, and she accepts (note to gentlemen- apparently using the word "love" in a proposal is the magic word that gets a yes. or so I learned from this novel).

And his family is the most modern family in all of Regency England, as they're all totes cool with Annabel's son and the fact that she got pregnant with Jarret's child before he even proposed the first time.  I get that the author wants a happy-ever-after, but seriously, folks, that is not the way it worked in the upper class of the time.

Honestly, I'm sure I have more to say than just that, but I've long since hit 1500 words in this sucker and I really should shut up and go read my next awful ARC.

(Hint: It's entitled Elf Love, and I requested it based solely on the fact that it looked like one of the most absurd pieces of trite fantasy quasi-lit ever.  Mockery is fun.)